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BR72DSS2.4 - Is life a battle?
Brockwood Park, UK - 6 October 1972
Discussion with Staff and Students 2.4



0:00 This is J. Krishnamurti’s fourth discussion with teachers and students at Brockwood Park, 1972.
0:11 Krishnamurti: What shall we talk about this morning?
0:37 Questioner: Sir, could we go into the question of what is death?
0:46 K: Do you want to discuss that? Many: Yes.
0:49 K: Yes? Good lord! (Laughter) What for?
1:02 Q: Out of curiosity.
1:03 K: Not that I’m objecting to discussing or talking over together about death, but why are you interested in it?
1:14 Q: Well it is something which you don’t know. There are many myths about it – I mean, death is this and that - many people put the theory of reincarnation, etc., but we really don’t know.
1:27 K: There are so many things we need to know, about ourselves, but why that particular subject?
1:34 (Pause) All right, let’s go into it.
1:50 Q: Well, it struck me at this particular moment.
1:54 K: Yes.
1:56 Q: That particular subject.
2:00 K: You know, I don’t know if you’ve been seeing on television the Labour Party’s Conference at Blackpool.
2:10 Have you, any of you? No. Mr Wilson and his group, the Labour Party, trade union, and so on and so on, lambasting Heath, you know, the other side.
2:33 And he’s going to lambast them next week. And as you listened to them, except for one or two people who lightly touched upon it, they looked at the whole of life in terms of politics, government, property, poverty, housing, taxes – you know, just on the surface.
3:22 Which is essential. And they never went very deeply into anything.
3:37 They went deeply into the economic question, fairly non-committing themselves to any particular action – or perhaps they have.
3:54 Anyhow, looking at it all, listening to all that, one wondered how difficult it is to learn anything very quickly.
4:07 I’m coming to your subject, I’m coming, I’m coming – listen to this also.
4:17 We learn very slowly. I’m not talking about languages and mathematics or historical facts, but learn very quickly about ourselves and our actions, what we should do - very quickly, we don’t.
4:38 We take an awful lot of time to learn and to change. Right? Now we’re going to learn – I don’t know why you should do it on such a lovely morning but we’ll go at it – we’re going to learn what it means, what death means.
5:05 What does it mean to you?
5:12 (Pause) I’ve never seen a dying man or a woman, but I’ve seen a lot of dead bodies being carried to the grave or to the crematorium, as it happens in India, to burning places.
5:40 I’ve seen them just before they were going to die, a day or two, or a week before they were going to die, but not actually at the moment of death.
5:50 Have you seen any of them?
5:55 Q: Yes.
5:57 K: You have?
5:59 Q: Yes.
6:02 K: What does it mean to you then when you saw it?
6:09 Q: I don’t know, just someone dying.
6:16 K: Is that all?
6:18 Q: At that time, yes.
6:24 K: I see a man or a woman being carried in a hearse with all that paraphernalia, flowers, you know, long cortege, you know, all that thing that goes on.
6:41 When you look at it, what does it mean to you?
6:51 Do you associate yourself with that person in the coffin?
6:58 That would be morbid, wouldn’t it? Would it?
7:03 Q: What’s morbid?
7:06 K: Morbid – what does morbid mean?
7:09 Q: Sick.
7:11 K: Sick?
7:13 Q: Yes.
7:15 K: No, please listen. Answer my question. You see a man in a coffin being carried out, carried away, taken away – what is your relationship to that thing that has happened to him?
7:36 Not to the person, because you don’t know him, you’ve never seen him, but what is your relationship to the idea of death?
7:47 Q: My first thought is that’s going to happen to me one day.
7:49 K: All right.
7:50 Q: And what am I doing?
7:53 K: Wait, wait, go slowly. Do you all think that way?
7:59 Q: No.
8:00 K: No. Why not?
8:02 Q: Well why should I? I mean...
8:06 K: No, listen, Tunki, what I am asking you. Listen carefully before you answer. You see that person being carried away, dead. What is your relationship, not to the person but to the thing that has happened to the man?
8:23 Because you’re also a human being.
8:30 What is your relationship to that thing that has taken place to a human being?
8:42 Q: I don’t quite get what the question is.
8:51 K: I’ll die. You see me being carried out. What’s your relationship? You knew me and you say, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, too bad.’ Or you say, ‘Well, I liked him so much, I wished he’d lived a little longer.’ Or you say, ‘I wonder what it feels like to die.’ Or as Mr Jenkins pointed out, he says, ‘One of these days I’m going to die too.’ Right?
9:35 All these questions arise. Or do you just say, ‘Well, he’s dead, gone.’ Or, ‘Death is something that is going to happen inevitably and I’m not…
9:47 I’m young, I’m enjoying myself.’ So I’m asking you: what is your relationship, what is your reaction to that event?
10:00 Not to the person because you don’t know him, or if you knew him you might say, ‘Well…’ – all the rest of it, you know, feel sorry or shed tears and feel terribly upset about it and so on.
10:10 Q: Well it’s part of life, part of the process.
10:16 K: So you say it’s a process, it’s part of life. Is it? Do you feel that way?
10:26 Q: Yes.
10:27 K: It’s part of life. Listen to that very carefully, what she said – part of life.
10:36 Q: The end of life.
10:39 K: No, wait. Is it the end of life or part of life?
10:47 Q: It depends on what you think life is.
10:50 K: Therefore – that’s what I’m trying to get at. So you say it’s part of life, or it’s the end of life. So what do you mean by life?
10:59 Q: It’s...
11:01 K: Wait. Think carefully. You see, you’re too quick! Part of life, you said. And you say it’s the end of life. Therefore you must ask: what is living? Right? What is living? Something separated from life… separated from death?
11:32 You are following all this? No, wait. She said it’s part of life. I met an archaeologist, he came to see me in Gstaad in Switzerland some years ago.
11:48 He was a German digging in one of the tells, that is the mounds in Mesopotamia, that is Iraq and Syria, where about five to seven thousand centuries ago – no, seven thousand years ago, between five and seven, Sumerians lived.
12:11 Have you heard about them? The Sumerians had extraordinary ideas and beliefs and all kinds of things, he was telling me, and one of their beliefs was that death is part of life.
12:32 Right? As you said, part of life.
12:41 Therefore there is nothing to be afraid of it. Whereas the Egyptians, the ancient ones, they considered death is an important factor, and they were going to live after and therefore they took with them all the things, their furniture, their gods, everything in their tomb, as like Tutankhamen.
13:09 Now, both are part of life, aren’t they?
13:21 The one who says dying is part of living, and the other says dying is part of living because I’m living with my things every day, I’m going to take it over with me.
13:35 Right? So we must find out what does it mean, living. Right? Now what does it mean to you, living. Does it include death, or do you say, ‘Well, death is something over there, it will happen to me eventually, in ten years’ time or in sixty years’ time or a hundred years’ time, I hope it won’t happen too soon,’ and so you keep it there.
14:04 Which is it for you?
14:08 Q: I think we usually keep it there.
14:14 K: Now is that part of living, if you keep it over there, far away – is that part of living?
14:21 Q: No.
14:22 K: No, sir, think, work, apply, don’t just say no or yes.
14:32 When you say it’s a part of living - bread is part of living – right?
14:42 – bread, eating. You’re playing tennis – part of life. You are having babies - part of life. Walking. So why do you put that over there and say that’s the end of life? And when you say it’s part of life, is it to you, or are you just saying it because it doesn’t mean anything?
15:11 You get it?
15:14 Q: First life, if you define life in the sense of a flow of evolution.
15:27 K: I don’t know. I’m not going to define it. What does it mean to you, Tunki, not a definition or an explanation but factually, every day, what does it mean?
15:41 What does living mean to you? Do you put death away, or do you say, ‘By Jove, it is part of my living’?
15:51 So if it is part of your living, it is all the time there.
15:58 Right? No?
16:00 Q: If it is really part of life.
16:03 K: If you say it’s part of living.
16:05 Q: But we take it as an end, so it can’t be part of living.
16:13 K: Therefore you say it cannot be known. Right? So you only say living is the known. Right? See what you’re caught in? (Laughs) You are following this?
16:34 I don’t know death therefore it cannot be part of living, therefore living is the known.
16:41 Q: Don’t we say that living is a continuing process?
16:51 K: Living is a continuous process, the process which is going from day to day to day.
17:00 Right? Do you know anything about what’s going to happen the day after tomorrow? Except the everyday, you’re uncertain of it. Why aren’t you concerned about that, the unknown? (Laughs) You follow?
17:18 Q: This is something natural in myself.
17:23 K: No, sir. Look at it carefully. When we say it’s part of living, as you said, and as she said it is the end of living, I want to find out these two statements, the truth of it, not just the opinions about it – you follow? - the truth of it.
17:46 I want to find out: what does it mean, living, part of living, death is part of living – what does it mean?
17:59 If it is part of living, then why do you put it away?
18:10 And if living doesn’t include death, as you say – right?
18:19 - death is living, death is there – and the end of… you say death happens when there is no living, when life ends.
18:37 So these two statements, one has to go very deeply into – you follow? - and find out the truth, the facts about it.
18:45 So we’ll take that first. Which is, living – death is part of living. Right? Now what does that mean?
19:03 Q: It is obvious that you if you say death is part of living, it’s not going to be the end.
19:12 K: No, I’m coming to that statement afterwards. I want to find out, when you say, as the Sumerians and others have said, death is part of living.
19:24 What does that mean? Is it just a statement, a slogan, or is it a fact?
19:40 If it is a fact – right? - if it is a fact, then I’m living with death.
19:47 Right? Come on, sirs.
19:53 Q: What do you mean by living with death?
19:59 K: Death, I don’t know what it means – right? – to die, and what might happen?
20:14 Right?
20:16 Q: You mean one is not worried or not afraid of it?
20:22 K: No, no. I’m living with death. If it is part of my life, I can’t deny one part of it.
20:31 Q: No.
20:32 K: Right? So I must find out both what it is to live and what it is to die, if it is a part of me.
20:44 You understand what I’m saying? No? Look, sir…
20:50 Q: But…
20:52 K: Yes, go ahead, you were going to say something.
20:58 Q: It is a state and if you’re in one state we are not in the other state.
21:06 K: Oh I see. You divide life into states, into fragments, into compartments.
21:17 You divide life - learning mathematics, going for a walk, thinking one thing, doing something else, death is something, living is – so you divide everything.
21:33 Then it’s not a part.
21:37 Q: No, but the whole parts, if you can call it this, is joined together in a cycle.
21:51 K: No, Tunki, think it out slowly a little, go into it a little more.
22:00 You know, the whole of life includes death, when we say it’s part of life.
22:07 Right? The whole of life - mathematics, geography, children, and so on, and death, love, is the whole of life – right? – and therefore it’s part of it.
22:27 You follow? Oh lord. That’s why, sir, it’s very difficult to talk about something, death, because unless you understand what living is, how can you understand what death is?
22:49 Right? So what do you mean by living?
23:02 And when you exclude one of the most important things in living, which is death, when you exclude that, is that living?
23:10 Q: But isn’t it what we do every day? I mean, living for us is just to feed ourselves and...
23:19 K: Feeding ourselves, you learn various things – right?
23:21 Q: Keep on going.
23:23 K: Yes, that’s physically keep going. Is that all, living? You talk to Mr Wilson and company, they’d say, ‘What are you talking about, that’s not living, just feeding your body.
23:36 I want to be the prime minister.’ And Mr Heath says, ‘I am the Prime Minister and nobody’s going to push me out,’ and the bishop says, ‘God is…’ and so on.
23:51 They’re not just saying, ‘Well, I just want food.’ Q: But when we say life or living, I definitely exclude death from it.
24:07 K: Why do you exclude something which is there?
24:12 Q: Well because it seems death is a physical phenomenon.
24:21 K: Oh, is it? Is it?
24:24 Q: Well I don’t know.
24:25 K: So what do you… You see, you say death is only physical. Aren’t you afraid of death?
24:35 Q: I don’t know.
24:38 K: Therefore you’ve not gone into it, have you?
24:40 Q: Well I have to die to go into it.
24:45 K: No. (Laughter) Don’t die to go into it.
24:54 Q: Well if you feel one doesn’t have anything to lose then one is not afraid of death.
25:05 K: You’re saying you’re not afraid of death when you have nothing to lose – is that it?
25:14 Q: Yes.
25:15 K: What have you to lose?
25:16 Q: Nothing.
25:17 K: Are you sure?
25:19 Q: Yes.
25:20 K: Aren’t you afraid to lose your car?
25:22 Q: No. (Laughter) K: No, no, don’t laugh. Aren’t you afraid of losing – I don’t know what – you’re attached to things, aren’t you?
25:41 You may not be, not too much, but most people are. Right? The attachment to things or ideas, opinions, conclusions, and acting from that, is what we call living.
25:59 No?
26:00 Q: Yes.
26:01 Q: And then death would be the end of that.
26:08 K: Wait, wait, don’t jump to conclusions, watch yourself. Watch yourself. I am attached to this house – if I am. I am attached to this house, I’m attached to my reputation, I’m attached to my audience, I’m attached to this going round the world talking, because I get a kick out of it.
26:39 (Laughter) So when you deprive me of that – right? - when death deprives me of that I feel annoyed, angry or afraid.
26:58 So living is this attachment.
27:02 Q: If there is this attachment.
27:06 K: I said, so - if.
27:07 Q: Then if it wasn’t attachment, if living wasn’t attachment...
27:11 K: No, wait, don’t go to that yet. First see, what we call living is the attachment to pleasure, in multitudinous forms – right?
27:29 – sex, children, house, property, I have ideas, opinions which give me pleasure, and I hold onto those.
27:45 And death means taking away all those things from me.
27:49 Q: And you see a hearse going by and you say, ‘I’ll be in that position one of these days and I’ll lose all this.’ K: Yes.
28:01 That’s it, that’s it. So all that’s part of living, isn’t it?
28:04 Q: All you have, all your personal possessions.
28:09 K: Personal possessions, your opinions, your furniture, your gods, your beliefs, your conclusions, your hurts – all that’s part of living, isn’t it?
28:24 And death, you see, is also a part of living but death means taking away all these things.
28:31 Q: So if you look at it that way then it would be the end of what you are attached to.
28:36 K: First - don’t come to any point yet – see what it means, living, first. He is your brother, isn’t he? Right. (Laughs) First see what it means. We have said living is not only bread and butter, clothes and shelter, but also all these attachments which give us pleasure, and all the things we avoid which may hurt.
29:10 This is what we call living. Right?
29:14 Q: That’s what some people call living.
29:19 K: Ah! Don’t you call it?
29:37 You don’t say, ‘Well living is just the eating and filling my tummy, putting on clothes and sleeping’ – you say, ‘Living is my hurts.’ Right?
29:50 I’ve been hurt, I’ve been insulted, I’ve been angry, people have been angry with me, I like you, I dislike somebody else, I want power, I want position – right?
30:08 - I’m much cleverer than you, I want to be this and that – you follow? – all that is living – my god and your god, I think I’m a great Hindu and I think everybody who is not a real Brahmin is not worth it – and so on and so on and so on.
30:36 That is what we call living. No? No? Why are you so nervous about it?
30:50 Are you aware of it? Or you are just saying yes, just to pacify me. (Laughs) Are you aware that living means all this?
31:04 Q: Surely that’s not all of living. That’s our physical state.
31:12 K: Look, sir, I said that – not only your physical but your psychological reactions to people whom you dislike and like, your psychological beliefs, hopes, fears, pleasures - all that is living.
31:37 No? It seems so obvious. No?
31:41 Q: Yes.
31:42 K: But you don’t in that include death, though you say death is part of living.
31:53 Q: But it’s impossible.
31:56 K: Wait! First see what we are doing! Don’t say it’s impossible. I don’t know, it may be possible. It is only impossible when you say death is the end of the physical.
32:11 Q: Yes.
32:12 K: Is it? You see? You don’t. No, this is really… you have to go into this very carefully. If you really want to go deeply into this you must go step by step.
32:30 Q: Krishnaji, if you look upon a dead body of someone you loved, has died, you see there the apparent ending of all moving, functioning... (inaudible) K: Of course, of course, of course.
32:43 Q: And that fills one with fear. (Inaudible) K: So you exclude death from living.
32:49 Q: Yes.
32:50 K: That’s all my point. Therefore stick to it, don’t vary from moment to moment. You say, ‘I exclude it. Death is not part of living.’ Right? So you say when you see a body dying, death all the rest of it, you say that is not living, that’s the end of living, because he’s no longer attached to his beastly little house or to his great little house, he’s no longer… he’s finished, he can’t think, he can’t react, all his nerves have – you follow? – it’s an end.
33:37 And therefore you’re afraid – follow the sequence of it – therefore you’re afraid such an end should happen to you too quickly.
33:47 Right? It will happen inevitably but please hold on a bit, don’t let it happen in the next six years.
33:58 Right? Therefore you say death is something over there and living is something over here.
34:07 Right?
34:08 Q: But they are attached to each other.
34:15 K: Wait, wait. Wait. First see this, how we divide life, living as this, and death is that, the ending of this.
34:32 Right? Just see, I’m not trying to answer any other question – just see that fact.
34:42 Then if you say it’s part of life, then why are you attached to anything?
34:52 To your opinions, to your complexities, to your complex, to your - you know, you, the tremendous you.
35:09 Why are you attached to it? Why don’t you say, ‘Yes, it’s a part of life’? You know? So you really don’t mean either.
35:25 Right?
35:35 You’re just repeating what somebody has told you. You haven’t said, ‘Look, I’m not going to repeat anything that anybody has told me, I’m going to find out.’ Right?
35:51 Which means don’t repeat a thing which you yourself have not understood.
36:02 Right, sir?
36:12 I have to repeat a distance between here and Paris, because I don’t know.
36:22 Right? Somebody tells me it’s so many miles or so many kilometres, so I repeat it.
36:37 And I don’t know anything about nationalism. Right? I’m not going to accept if a politician or my grandmother or somebody says, ‘You’re an Englishman,’ or anything.
36:51 You follow? I’m not going to accept it because I know nothing about it, what it means. What are the full implications, not just waving the flags and standing up and saluting and all that nonsense, but what it means, what is involved in it – wars, division, prejudice – you follow? – the whole of it.
37:18 Until I know the whole significance of it - and if I like it I keep it, I say, ‘Yes, I’m a stupid Indian.’ So I will not repeat a thing which I have not gone into, understood.
37:48 So that’s what we are now. I am trying to understand this thing, not what the church says, what Jesus says or what the Buddhists say – I put all that aside, I’m going to find out.
38:02 Right? Right? Are you in that position?
38:16 You must be, because you’re young, you can’t take on all the burdens of your mothers and grandfathers, your parents and what other people say – you’re young, you’ve got to find out.
38:28 Q: Well we might be able to define it, psychological death, but...
38:38 K: I’m not defining anything. I won’t even use that word ‘definition’, ‘define’. All that I am saying is...
38:47 Q: I am not defining.
38:49 K: Look, Tunki, we have stated two things very clearly. One is that death is part of living – right? – and the other is: death is the end of living.
39:05 Are these two facts?
39:08 Q: No.
39:09 Q: They are ideas.
39:12 K: The fact being, is that so, is that so to me? That when someone says it’s part of living, is that so to me?
39:23 Q: Of course not.
39:25 K: Therefore I won’t accept it. Right? Then is death not living?
39:41 Q: I don’t know.
39:43 K: Therefore find out. Don’t say either. You’re getting what I am talking about? Don’t say it’s part of living and don’t say it’s the end of living, because you don’t know.
40:05 Right? Do you say that? Not verbally but deeply. You follow? I really don’t know what is the truth about all this. Which means you want to find out. Right? Right, Tunki? We’re together now? You know the whole of Asia says, practically the whole of Asia says – that is Hinduism, Buddhism, various sects derived from these two orthodoxies, philosophies and so on, they believe death is not an end.
41:01 They believe that when one dies one goes on living in a different world, in a different atmosphere, in a different dimension - which is called reincarnating.
41:19 We’ll go into that later if you’re interested in it. And here in the Christian world they say, ‘Yes, but we shall be resurrected.’ You know? When the Gabriel blows his… we will all wake and run. Wait. No, don’t, don’t – these are – you follow? – the same thing, only one puts it differently – you follow? – one uses different concepts, images, ideas and also the other, but essentially they are the same - that there is a continuity of a human mind, of K when he dies, he will go on, whether he’s resurrected or lives, reborn, till he is perfect, so that he becomes part of the divine.
42:12 That’s the idea of reincarnation. Right? So you know nothing except what people have said or what people have read or what you have read.
42:25 Is that right, Tunki? Shall we go on from there?
42:29 Q: Yes.
42:30 K: My golly, see how long we take to a simple fact? Forty five minutes about a simple fact. Which is, that you don’t learn quickly. (Laughter) You take forty five minutes to see a simple thing – you follow? – and you’re so young.
42:57 It’s all right for an old brain which says, ‘I’m tired, I’ve learned so much, don’t tell me new things, I don’t want to.’ Right, Tunki, you are I, we are going to find out.
43:05 I don’t know, so I’m going to find out, I’m going to learn, not spend years learning – you follow? – about this fact.
43:24 Now what does living mean? Until I’m completely sure I can’t ask the other.
43:34 Right? I can’t ask what is death till I know completely what is living.
43:43 If I don’t know what is living, which is my daily life – you follow? - how can I ask about something which I don’t know? If I ask something which I don’t know I’m escaping from this.
44:02 You get this? Right? And we have been taught to escape. Right? Come on, sirs, push me. Push each other along. So I must find out what is living. By Jove, isn’t it hot in here? Don’t you want some windows open? Is that too much air for you?
44:38 Isn’t that enough? Is that all right for everybody? So I must find out what is living. What is living? You know, apply your brain, apply all your capacity to go into this.
45:11 What is living? As you said, bread and butter. That’s part of it, isn’t it – food, clothes, shelter – right? - the shelter may be a palace or a hut, or a tent.
45:39 That’s part of living, isn’t it? Or do you say that’s the only living, that’s all we’re concerned about and nothing else?
45:56 Q: How do you know that’s the only thing?
46:02 K: I’m asking you. I said to you: is that the only thing?
46:07 Q: What about learning?
46:09 K: What about learning. What about the man who is a general planning a war? He’s not concerned about only bread and butter and shelter, he’s a general with vast responsibilities – you follow?
46:30 - planning a future war or planning a present war. He says that’s part of living. Right?
46:40 Q: To him.
46:45 K: To all the people who are involved in the army and supporting the army, manufacturing all the things that are involved – all that is part of living, not only to him, to all the millions of people who are involved in it.
47:06 Q: That’s how they’re conditioned though. That’s their conditioning.
47:09 K: Wait, wait. That’s what you think. So you must take – listen to it, that’s my point – you must take what the admirals think, the generals think, the politicians think, the priests think, what your neighbour thinks, because you’re part of all this.
47:38 Aren’t you? When I buy a stamp and post a letter I’m supporting the war, I’m supporting the general.
47:52 No?
47:54 Q: Yes.
47:58 K: When I pay tax I’m supporting the generals.
48:04 Q: Everything you do.
48:06 K: So, living includes all that – don’t say just bread and butter.
48:17 Living includes all the divisions which politicians have created, which we helped them to create – nationalism – you follow?
48:26 - separate governments, separate armies.
48:34 And living means also my pleasure – I love my house, I love my family – doesn’t matter, we’ll use ‘love’ in the ordinary sense – I love my family, I’m terribly attached to my family, I love my wife, I want to give her all the jewels I can get.
48:58 That’s part of living, isn’t it?
49:10 Part of living means clothes, food, shelter, jobs, opinions, judgements, the desire for position, power, prestige, my hurts - I get angry – right?
49:35 - I quarrel with you, I beat you down – all that is living.
49:50 I’m attached to this house, I’m attached to my wife, to my children, I’m attached to that lovely piece of furniture which I’ve bought at great expense.
50:11 I love to be in the Rolls Royce that Mr Thingamabob drives – right?
50:20 – that’s all living, and I’m attached to this thing.
50:34 So I don’t want to die. Why should I die? Though I know that is inevitable, it’s going to happen to me, through accident or through some disease or through some unforeseen event, but therefore it’s all right, I’ll wait – in the meantime I’m going to hold.
51:01 Right? Which I call living. Therefore I exclude death. I build a wall round myself and my attachments and keep death outside the wall. Right? No? Tunki says no. Come on, out with it.
51:16 Q: Well…
51:17 K: You’re very serious.
51:19 Q: As long as the basic necessities are fulfilled, why should I hold to any other things?
51:57 K: You do, Tunki, don’t say, ‘Why should I?’ I had a brother, he died of tuberculosis, TB, oh, fifty years ago, nearly.
52:19 And I was terribly upset, I believe. Why? And I said, ‘For horror, a terrible thing to happen!’ I didn’t say, ‘Part of living,’ I didn’t…
52:34 I was too young. You follow? I was horrified, tears, you know, all the rest of it, sad.
52:45 I may not, I don’t know, it doesn’t matter. This happens to everybody, that’s my point – you follow? - whether the rich, poor, kings and queens or generals or poor soldiers fighting in Vietnam, it happens to everybody.
53:01 And in that there is sadness, in that there is tremendous pain, loneliness.
53:11 And I don’t want my brother to die, because I’m attached to him - as I’m attached to my house, my property, my ideas, opinions.
53:33 You follow? And that’s why they fight. The Roman Catholic priest is doing Mass in the Protestant Church.
53:47 Think of it, after four, five hundred years, such a thing happening.
53:54 Children playing games. You follow? So I say you have to take living, all this, not just what you and I think we like living.
54:08 I don’t know if you follow all this.
54:10 Q: Yes.
54:12 Q: Living is everything. Living is in everything.
54:18 K: That’s it – living is everything.
54:28 Therefore you must include death in it, not say, ‘Well I’ll leave it there, it’s not part of living.’ Right?
54:36 Therefore I must find out what death means.
54:44 I know now more or less, perhaps for you verbally and a little bit with feeling behind it, you don’t know the complete meaning of living, in which there is tremendous sorrow, loneliness, pain - not only physical pain but other kind of psychological pains – you don’t know all of it, you know some of it.
55:30 The agony of being alone, no one to look to. The sorrow of losing something.
55:44 All that is living. Right? Right, sir? Right? I’m not persuading you to agree or disagree – that’s the fact, whether you like it or not.
56:23 Then I can ask, if I really know what it means to live: what is living?
56:34 Not my ideas about living – you follow? – but the fact, the everyday fact of living - my idiocies, my absurdities, my saying I am right, I want to be the top dog – you follow? - this everlasting battle going on.
56:58 That is living, what we call living. And I say: what is death?
57:11 Is it something opposite to living? You understand? Opposite means diametrically different.
57:22 Q: No it isn’t.
57:25 Q: Yes, but if it is the opposite, it’s still part of that.
57:33 K: I said diametrically different - I have cut out the word ‘opposite’, quickly. (Laughs) I learnt quickly.
57:40 Q: Do you mean it is something which is not death?
57:44 K: No, I’m asking you: is death something totally different from living?
57:53 From the look of things it looks like it, doesn’t it? My brother died. I wasn’t there but my brother died. That means his body ended, they burnt him – you follow? - and he was gone.
58:21 Right? Proceed from there. Physically he was gone.
58:34 I saw him living, suffering. I was in India, he was in California, and they said he’s dead.
58:46 And that’s the end of it. So, is death something totally different from living, diametrically different?
59:06 If I say it is diametrically, totally different, then I am excluding that from living.
59:15 Right?
59:16 Q: I don’t know the word ‘diametrical’.
59:23 K: Diametrical – what is diametrical?
59:25 Q: It does mean opposite. (Laughs) I’m afraid it does mean opposite.
59:27 K: (Laughs) Yes, it does mean the opposite. I’m trying to get away from that word ‘opposite’ because generally when we use the word ‘opposite’…
59:37 Cowardice is the opposite of courage. Right? But when I’m afraid, when I’m a coward and I want to be courageous, the idea of courage is born out of cowardice.
59:58 Q: (Inaudible) K: Listen to what I am saying, old boy, learn from it quickly. If it’s wrong, reject it, but learn.
1:00:06 Q: You’re using language and in language there is a comparison.
1:00:14 K: No, look, sir, that’s what generally happens.
1:00:17 Q: Okay.
1:00:18 K: What actually takes place, not my idea of what takes place. I am a coward and I want to be courageous.
1:00:28 So the courage is the outcome of my cowardice.
1:00:35 Right? Therefore it is the opposite of my being a coward.
1:00:46 Right? Therefore in the opposite is the seed of its own opposite.
1:00:52 Q: Whereas one... (inaudible) K: Wait! Have you got it?
1:00:58 Q: Yes.
1:00:59 K: Hold on a minute, hold on a minute!
1:01:06 Till you get it, don’t jump further.
1:01:14 All opposites have the seed of their own opposite.
1:01:22 Q: If I try to be...
1:01:29 K: That’s it. That’s it, old boy. If I try to be courageous I do it because I have no cowardice.
1:01:44 If I did not know cowardice I wouldn’t know what it is to have courage.
1:01:51 You follow? Are you all asleep?
1:02:02 No? So instead of developing courage, I want to know why I’m a coward.
1:02:11 You follow?
1:02:12 Q: You’re facing the fact.
1:02:14 K: Only the fact, not the opposite. That’s all. You get it? Are we moving together or am I… Have you got it?
1:02:41 You are here today?
1:02:49 So I want to know if death is something which has nothing to do with living.
1:02:59 Therefore it’s not the opposite – you understand? Are you getting what I’m saying?
1:03:10 Something totally different from living.
1:03:20 If I say it is the opposite then I say it is the end of what I consider living.
1:03:29 You get it? Therefore my death… death then has the seeds of my living - as I’m afraid I might die, I carry that seed into death.
1:03:47 I don’t know if you are following all this. Ah, I see something. You see, sir, when you leave Brockwood you must have understood all this and be totally different human beings.
1:04:07 That’s why I’m putting my heart into this. You understand?
1:04:12 Q: I only understand death in terms of the living that I...
1:04:20 K: ...know. That’s right, sir. You’re looking at death from a point which you know, and therefore death, you say, is the unknown, of which you are afraid.
1:04:37 Q: Why are you afraid?
1:04:39 K: See what I’ve said, old boy. I know living, at least I think I do, and death comes and takes away what I consider living.
1:04:57 Therefore it is something opposite to what I call living, therefore I don’t want it.
1:05:19 So I’m asking myself: is death something entirely different?
1:05:29 Not what the priests say – I’m finished with all that bilge. You follow? I want to find out if death is something entirely different from living.
1:05:48 Therefore I’m asking myself: what is living? Is living all this - the struggle, the pain, the pleasure, the hurts, the extraordinary agony that one goes through, attachment, I love somebody and that somebody turns to somebody else, I’m not loved, I must be loved, I love – you follow? – the battle that goes on, the conflict, the suffering, the pain, the agony, the uncertainty, the mess?
1:06:24 I call all that living. You follow? Is that living? I call it living. And we all accept… the world accepts that as living.
1:06:46 And is that living? And I say, ‘My God, how stupid it looks.’ Right? Surely that’s not the way to live.
1:06:58 Q: It’s not the way to live but I don’t know how to live.
1:07:05 K: Wait, wait! Wait, wait, wait. If I say that is not the way to live, I’m out.
1:07:14 Right? Then I’ll say: now if that is not the way to live, this battle, these egotistic assertions, the power, the position, the deceits, the pride, the vanity, the hurts, the wall that I have built round myself – all that is not living.
1:07:55 I do need bread, butter… bread, clothes and shelter, but everything else is not living.
1:08:07 Right?
1:08:08 Q: Then what is it?
1:08:12 K: Have you said that is not it?
1:08:17 Q: I would not say the ending of all that is to die.
1:08:22 K: I didn’t say that, old boy.
1:08:25 Q: No, no, but...
1:08:26 K: Now you’re jumping to something. Tunki, you are jumping to something. I said we human beings accept living, which is endless strife, endless hurts, endless attachments.
1:08:51 If I give up this house I’m attached to that house, if I give up this woman I’m attached to that woman.
1:08:59 I’m attached to my ideas, my gods, my nationality, I’m a conservative – you follow? - and you are a liberal, somebody else is – that is this terrible division, battle we call living.
1:09:17 And I say to myself: is that living? Is living a battle?
1:09:32 China is training them to be one way, Russia is training them to the other way, the capitalists are doing something else, the Taiwan people – you follow? – it’s a battle, battle, battle - and I say…
1:09:52 What do you say?
1:09:59 Is that living? Have you any right to say that’s not living? You have the right to say it only when you’re out of it. Right? But when you are in it you can’t call it, ‘That’s not the way to live.’ It’s like a prisoner saying the way to live is outside the prison.
1:10:34 So what are you going to do?
1:10:48 So is your life, young as it is, is your life moving towards this life, what people call living?
1:11:08 Are you being educated to fit into the world that’s called living?
1:11:15 (Laughs) Right? What do you say, Venezuela?
1:11:32 Do you think, feel, as the world does, in terms of power, position, prestige, ambition, competition?
1:11:51 You know, this is the world.
1:12:05 And if you do, then death is something that is at the end of life, to be avoided at any cost.
1:12:16 Take all the amount of drugs and medicine to last another ten years.
1:12:30 If you say that is not the way to live then you have to live differently.
1:12:38 Don’t play the hypocrite, say that’s not the way to live and yet live that way. Right?
1:12:52 Q: Sir, excuse me, I don’t quite understand that. It seems that I am the world, I am...
1:13:02 K: Yes, sir, you are the world, therefore you have to deny the world.
1:13:10 Because the world is all that, therefore you have to deny yourself.
1:13:16 Q: Then I’m separating myself from the world.
1:13:19 K: No, you are the world. Sir, look, the world is this, isn’t it, what we’ve described.
1:13:26 Q: Yes.
1:13:28 K: And you are that world, you are part of that world, therefore you are the world.
1:13:32 Q: Yes.
1:13:33 K: Because you are – not you, but I am saying one is – ambitious, greedy, power, wanting power, position, all this.
1:13:44 So you are the world.
1:13:46 Q: Yes.
1:13:47 K: So if you deny the world you are denying yourself.
1:13:57 Therefore you are not the world.
1:13:58 Q: I don’t know it means to deny myself.
1:14:03 K: When you are not all that. Look, sir, when I’m the world, I am the world...
1:14:14 Q: Yes, I understood up to there, sir, but I still don’t understand what you mean when you say, ‘When you are not all that.’ K: Oh, when you are not greedy, ambitious, seeking power, position, prestige, get hurt, you know, attached, battle between you and me, you are much bigger than I am, I want to be as clever – you know, all the monstrous things that goes on in each.
1:14:39 You follow? When all that is washed out of me, I’m no longer the world. As long as that is in me, I am the world and the world is me.
1:14:51 Q: Sir, I’m concerned with this question, this process of washing it out.
1:14:56 K: That’s a different thing we’ll come to. You see?
1:15:07 Is this too serious?
1:15:16 Q: No.
1:15:18 Q: One can play around, as you say, wanting power.
1:15:26 K: Play around.
1:15:28 Q: One doesn’t necessarily have to be attached to it.
1:15:36 (Laughter) K: Tunki, you’re not becoming a priest, are you? (Laughter) You’re not becoming a priest are you? That’s what they all say: we’re not attached to the world but we’re still – you know? (Laughs) I am a bishop but eventually I’m going to become archbishop.
1:15:56 Q: No, not that.
1:15:58 K: I understand what you mean. You can have your coats, your car, your house and be free of it.
1:16:11 But that requires tremendous honesty – you follow? – integrity. That means you really don’t care.
1:16:25 You know? I mean, it’s no good when I say, ‘Well I don’t care whether I sit on the platform or not,’ but I jolly well see that I always sit on the platform.
1:16:42 But if I really don’t care – you follow?
1:16:51 - I don’t care whether I’m sitting on a platform or digging in the garden.
1:16:58 I really don’t care. I know this, you may not. You may say, ‘Well that man is deceiving himself.’ You’re welcome to it, that’s your privilege. But I know I don’t care. I’ve tested it out, I’ve watched it, I won’t have a thing like that in me.
1:17:29 You follow? So, if you want to find out, as you did at the beginning of this talk, dialogue, what is death, you have to find out what is living.
1:17:52 And to find that out, you see it. You don’t have to spend ten years to find out, you see it, in yourself and around you.
1:18:03 When you’re depressed, when you’re angry, when you’re brutal, when you’re violent, when you’re elated – you know, the whole thing.
1:18:14 Then you will say: how am I to get out of all this, to wipe it away from my brain, from my blood, this poison?
1:18:33 Are you asking that question?
1:18:42 Q: Yes, I am.
1:18:51 I am asking it.
1:18:52 K: You’re asking it. First of all, why are you asking it?
1:18:54 Q: Because I’d like to know.
1:18:58 K: No. From whom? From me?
1:19:02 Q: Well I have to find out but I don’t know how to find out.
1:19:12 K: Listen, sir. From whom are you going to find out how to wash away the ugliness of the world?
1:19:29 The ugliness of the world is in you. Right? That poison is in you. How do you cleanse yourself of it? Now when you say, ‘I want to find out how to purgate myself of this poison,’ whom are you asking?
1:19:55 Are you asking somebody who says he has cleansed himself of this poison?
1:20:14 And how do you know he has cleansed himself of the poison? Because he sits on a blasted platform? Or has a beard or is a guru from some stinking country?
1:20:29 (Laughs) Sorry! Or do you say, ‘Look, I want to find out.
1:20:40 Let’s talk about it.’ Right? When you talk about it, you are not my authority. I have no authority; there is only learning.
1:20:58 Right? So I don’t treat you as an authority, I’m only learning. We’re learning together. We’re learning to walk together. We’re learning to build the place together. Right? Are you like that? Otherwise you won’t learn.
1:21:27 So I want to find out in your companionship, in your friendship, in your discussion, in your dialogue, I want to find out together how to wipe, how to cleanse myself of the world and its horrors.
1:21:54 Right? (Pause) First of all, you’re not following anybody.
1:22:19 You’re very clear on that point. Because if you do you belong to the world.
1:22:32 And you won’t allow anybody to follow you. It works both ways, (laughs) not just…
1:22:45 That means you have not allowed authority to blind you.
1:22:57 Right? So you’re free from authority - except the authority of the policeman, the law – right?
1:23:12 - the authority of somebody who is responsible for this whole place. You follow? All that’s involved when you... So you begin to learn about authority, its place and its destructive nature.
1:23:37 So I know when to cooperate with authority and I know when not to cooperate with authority.
1:23:55 I won’t cooperate with Hitler – right? - or with any of these general politicians or priests, but I cooperate with authority when I see it has its right place.
1:24:14 The policeman has a right place – if I drive on the wrong side of the road. You know what happened in Gstaad? A poor chap from England who was used to the way of keeping to the left, drove very fast to the right and a few days later he was killed.
1:24:39 I mean, there was a tremendous accident and a few days later he died.
1:24:48 So I know, because I’m intelligent – you follow? - there is intelligence in operation. Not my opinion, which is authority, with which I’ll cooperate – intelligence says: see what happens.
1:25:07 You are following all this?
1:25:14 Intelligence says: will you not pay tax?
1:25:23 Intelligence says: will you not buy a stamp ever, because it leads to war?
1:25:31 You follow? So when you learn about authority, as you are learning about authority, intelligence is being awakened.
1:25:45 Right? And that intelligence is not the world’s intelligence. Right? Because the world says, ‘We are using intelligence to kill each other.’ Better armaments, new kind of aeroplanes.
1:26:07 You follow? So when you say, ‘I want to learn how to cleanse the mind of the world,’ you’re asking that question to learn, not from any authority.
1:26:36 Right? Right?
1:26:39 Q: Yes.
1:26:42 K: Therefore you have understood or learnt the importance and the non-importance of authority.
1:26:55 See how beautifully it works out if you use… Right? So I have to find out if I’ve really learnt the whole structure of authority.
1:27:14 Not only out there but in here. I want authority over you, because it’s great pleasure to me, it gives me…
1:27:32 I’m important. Once a very well know guru came to see me.
1:27:48 He said, ‘Sir, I’ve run out of my ideas, help me to have more ideas’ – listen to the idiocy of it -’and as I’ve got a large following, please help me with more ideas so that I can spread the best ideas in the world possible.’ You follow?
1:28:28 (Laughs) So I have to learn about authority. Therefore – listen to it carefully - I’m learning about authority, therefore my mind is essentially humble.
1:28:40 Right? Because I can’t learn if I’m not humble.
1:28:50 Right? Therefore the factor of learning is humility.
1:29:02 See how it works? When there is humility I know where authority is poison and where it is not.
1:29:23 Right, sir? Have you got it?
1:29:34 Gregory, have you got it?
1:29:44 (Pause) How can I learn if I assume anything?
1:29:51 I can’t, can I? I can’t learn about authority if I’m following somebody.
1:30:03 Right? Wait, let me go step by step. You are my guru, you are my priest, you are my well of knowledge.
1:30:21 Look, I don’t know about physical science – right?
1:30:33 - I know nothing about it. Dr Bohm comes along and teaches me something about physical science.
1:30:43 I learn, because I know nothing about it.
1:30:50 After having learnt – you follow? - I assume a position of authority. Because I like that position, it gives me a sense of vanity, pride.
1:31:09 You follow? Therefore I become the authority, not the importance of learning about physical science.
1:31:18 Do you get what I am saying? The importance is to learn about physical science, not I have learnt it therefore I am a great man.
1:31:29 But in learning about physical science the mind is capable of learning.
1:31:44 Which is really important, not who has power, position.
1:31:52 In the same way, I’m learning about myself and the world. Learning. The world says you must have a guru, a priest, a politician – you follow? – all the rest – you must obey them.
1:32:10 I say, ‘Look, look, I want to learn about it, I am not going to obey anybody, I’m going to learn.’ Right?
1:32:19 Therefore my mind is capable or is in a state of humility.
1:32:27 It doesn’t say, ‘Well I am a Catholic,’ I am this or I am that - which is silly.
1:32:36 You follow? Therefore my mind is capable of learning. Therefore it cannot accept authority in any way.
1:32:51 Therefore the mind has become intelligence and therefore authority is necessary here, authority is not necessary there. You follow? I wonder if you do.
1:32:59 Q: I don’t see what this has got to do with death.
1:33:05 K: Oh yes. Wait, wait. A great deal to do with death. What are you talking, Miss Pratt? I said either we exclude death completely and put it over there, and therefore the only thing that matters is living, and inevitably I’ll face it someday.
1:33:37 Poor people! ‘What matters is living.’ And I say: what is living?
1:33:46 Living is this chaos of inaction and action, which is the world, of which I am a part.
1:34:03 Is that living? Is it living to battle one’s way through life everlastingly, fighting each other, one company making money, fighting, fighting?
1:34:25 You know? You understand what is going on in the world? Is that the way of living? And we say, ‘By Jove, at least for me that’s not the way of living, to live.’ Therefore as I am the world and the world is me, the poison is in me as well as in the world.
1:34:50 And as long as that poison is there, death is something to be put away and be afraid of.
1:34:59 Right? Therefore I want to learn a way, I want to learn…
1:35:12 Ah, no, I begin again. Is there – not a way, a method – can the mind cleanse itself of the poison of the world?
1:35:25 You see, it is related to death. When it has cleansed itself of the poison of the world, death is there always, because death is something totally new.
1:35:43 I won’t go into all that. It is one o’clock.
1:35:48 Q: I don’t quite agree with that.
1:35:52 K: What don’t you agree with?
1:35:54 Q: You said that as I’m part of the world and I play around with the world, that therefore I put the death outside.
1:36:10 K: No, I said you can’t play around with the world. Look, Tunki, I said just now… (Pause in recording) K: So you are in the world, and when you are that way, the world says death is not part of living, death is over there, I’ll wait till I die.
1:36:31 And therefore I’ll invent some hope, some longing, there may be reincarnation, I may be resurrected.
1:36:39 You follow? No?
1:36:41 Q: No.
1:36:42 K: What do you mean, no, sir?
1:36:54 Have you noticed the world, how frightened of death it is?
1:37:00 Q: Some people I notice, yes.
1:37:03 K: Some people. And other people, what do they do? Rationalise it: ‘Yes, you die and that’s the end of it, why make a lot of fuss about it?
1:37:14 The tree dies and it’s absorbed into the soil.
1:37:21 Why shed tears? It is so.’ Others say when you die you live, reincarnate, come back to earth as Mr Smith or Mr Rao or as Tunki.
1:37:39 Q: But I don’t know.
1:37:42 K: (Laughs) And you believe that, or you believe as the Christians do, you will be resurrected and go to Heaven.
1:37:57 So all that means is putting death away over there. Therefore you never say death is part of living.
1:38:10 Right? And therefore from that you see that as long as this division exists, there must be fear.
1:38:25 And that’s part of the world.
1:38:33 Right? And to be free of that poison of the world you have to find out what is the meaning of living.
1:38:43 Q: One thing, the question of wanting to know death is more what is in physical death, but doesn’t it imply also…
1:39:00 At least I don’t feel that I have a feeling of fear.
1:39:01 K: Look, shall we go on with this next Sunday? It’s ten past one.
1:39:05 Q: Yes.
1:39:08 K: Shall we? I’m sorry. Shall we? Keep your question, will you? May I stop?
1:39:18 Q: Yes.